Hey all, this is an updated version of my entry to the Java4K contest: Farmer John and the Birds!

Farmer John wakes up to find a swarm of nasty birds coming to eat all his precious corn. Help him kill them all before it’s too late!

Instructions:

Click anywhere on the screen to fire John’s gun at that location. The birds will try to avoid you, so you will have to move quickly. Each level brings more and faster birds.

There’s different bird types that require slightly different approaches to kill. Sometimes the birds drop an egg. Shoot the purple eggs to get 10% reduction in reload time, shoot the yellow eggs to get extra ammo slots.

Here's an embedded applet; compressed using pack200 its just under 4k:[applet archive=farmerjohn4k.jar class=F width=800 height=600]

I've just made a wrapper for my Java4K games and compiled it using Excelsior JET, so that people can download and play my 4K games without internet connection, and without the need to have Java installed. Of course, that means the size has increased by a bit

I couldn't access to the java console anymore since I upgraded my system to Java 7 ( yes, call me an amateur programmer ). What you wrote about some exception crashing your game lead me to solve my console problem - I just had to enable it through the system configuration panel.

Then I started to play Farmer John and the Birds 4K again. I reached level 22 this time when the game froze, in the middle of this level. The white screen appeared when I scrolled the page containing the applet. Then I opened the java console - a black screen appeared on it ! I waited for a while. The java console came back to normal, but no exception was indicated.

My Windows 7 system is running Java 7 Update 9, 32 bits version. I played your game under Internet Explorer 9. Later this week, I will try it again with Chrome.

I reached level 22 this time when the game froze, in the middle of this level.

Great, thanks for testing. It's a weird bug, especially since it comes in so late. It must be something I my code, I could not yet reproduce it (I've "cheated" a few times to level 21, but no problem so far).

Wow, thank you for taking the time to do this testing. I've found the cause of the mysterious delay at the first shot: the sound system. I've fixed that one (not deployed yet). I'll try to reproduce the freeze with Chrome & normal applet soon, but currently I'm a bit busy at work. Thanks again.

Another update (new jars already uploaded):- fixed bug: short delays at the first shot- improved the sounds- tuned the difficulty: it should be harder to get to higher levels now- some minor bug fixes

I could not find the cause of the crashes you encountered StephR (I cannot reproduce it on my system), but I've cheated a little: difficulty is up now, so it should be much harder to get to that level.

I confirm the game is much harder now, and I'm ok with that. I went as far as level 13, and I believe I will never be able to go beyond level 14 or 15. And maybe even less far as I noticed another change into the game : now the gun loader is not reset at the start of each new level. If it was some unvoluntary change, when you fix it, the game will be even harder.

And sorry for warning you so lately about these problems. I lacked time to test games on the first half of the contest.

Now the gun loader is not reset at the start of each new level. If it was some unvoluntary change, when you fix it, the game will be even harder.

You're right, I kind of forgot to mention that. The reset at the start of each level was unintentional, I'd like bonuses (e.g. increased ammo and faster reloading) to carry over to next levels. This should compensate a bit for the increased difficulty.

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